CELTIC’S on-loan Croatian Under-21 international Filip Benkovic put in a near-perfect performance in the 1-0 win over Rosenborg last night.
The central defender, who cost Leicester City £13million from Dinamo Zagreb in the summer, strolled through the opening game of Europa League Group B at Parkhead.
Brendan Rodgers singled out Man of the Match Kieran Tierney, matchwinner Leigh Griffiths and skipper Scott Brown for special praise, but he added: “I thought the two centre-backs, Dedryck and Filip, did very well, too.
Benkovic was on target with 82 of his 86 passes against the Norwegians which is around the 95 per cent completion rate. He also won two tackles, but he also recovered 10 balls, as opposed to Brown who only managed one and nobody else in the Hoops team had more than four.
The captain completed 94 per cent of his passes, the most important one being the excellent diagonal pass that picked out Boyata to nod the ball on for Griffiths to head the 87th-minute winner beyond Andre Hansen.
None-stop Tierney completed four crosses, recovered four balls, had one tackle and had 85 per cent passes.
Rodgers’ side completed the fourth-most passes from the 48 teams who were in action last night and they also were third when it came to shots on target with seven.
Two came within seconds of each other when the keeper pushed away a Tom Rogic drive and Odsonne Edouard’s effort from the rebound was knocked onto the post for a corner-kick by Hansen.
